In new book, Google’s Schmidt tags China as Internet enemy No. 1

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has harsh words for China in his new book, “The New Digital Age,” due out in April.

Co-authored with Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, the book predicts China will undergo a revolution in the coming decades, but not before the country’s growing dominance in global IT infrastructure potentially disrupts the development of the Internet.

“China, Schmidt and Cohen write, is ‘the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information’ as well as ‘the most sophisticated and prolific’ hacker of foreign companies,” reports the Wall Street Journal, which had an exclusive preview of the book.

To combat this development, Schmidt and Cohen want Western companies to develop closer relationships with Western governments, a Google business strategy which conservatives in the U.S. have criticised intensely.

The two men previously co-authored an essay, “The Digital Disruption,” published a month before the Arab Spring protest movement began in 2010.